Hex Magazine » Music reviews

Review: Achega Solar (Arde Fero)

Reviews — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 22:28:29 +0000

Achega Solar is a rich and beautiful adventure into archaic folk consciousness, delving into that special realm of speculation and fancy from which all tall stories of wisdom and grace descend. Its a wonderful musical achievement, and a precious listening ...

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Review: Die Große Göttin (Falkenstein)

Reviews — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 23:13:13 +0000

Falkenstein is a one-man neofolk outfit from Germany, a creative vessel for musician Tobias Franke. Its music is dark, muscular, and resonant. The songs evoke myriad images of rural, pre-modern Europe: farmland at the rim of dark forests; black, moist earth; skies pregnant with clouds. This is Romantic music, to be sure, and in the best possible sense: an evocation of nature and humanity interwoven ...

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Review: Self Titled (Tuhat Kuolemaa Sekunnissa)

Reviews — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:29:06 +0000

Tuhat Kuolemaa Sekunnissa is a neofolk outfit from Finland. Their music is dreamy, earthy, and yet also muscular. It feels carved from hard wood, bristling with a raw and rough texture that feels good against one's ...

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Review: Clergy of Oneiros (Somnivore)

Reviews — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 23:10:08 +0000

True to their name, Finnish experimentalists Somnivore have served up a dream-laden sonic voyage with their album Clergy of Oneiros. Using found sounds, samples, noisescapes, and a stately sense of drama, they've created an unsettling, absorbing, and subtle piece of otherworldly ...

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Review: Self-titled (Tervahäät)

Reviews — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:14:40 +0000

Tervahäät is highly recommended for fans of folk music, ambient music, doom metal (although I stress that is is not metal by any stretch), and lovers of nature in its colder incarnations. It is not for those who cannot tolerate darkness and depth – the shallow and easily satisfied should look elsewhere. This album is both dark forest and reflective waters, and invites us to find ourselves in surprising new ways and ...

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Review: Tuhkankantajat (MAA)

Reviews — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 15:31:51 +0000

Tuhkankantajat is darkness tempered with ecstasy; raw and sophisticated; deeply interior yet verging on the boundless. These Finnish masters have been quietly forging rich new possibilities for neofolk, and it seems to me only a matter of time for their influence to pervade ...

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Review: Silver Moon Slumber (Key)

Reviews — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 21:56:42 +0000

Hailing from the cold but beautiful climes of Finland, Key are purveyors of dreamy and evocative neofolk. Their new release Silver Moon Slumber is a beautiful album, at once trancelike and atmospheric. Loaded with unique groove, and resonant with inflections from New Wave, this release conjures cold but joyous landscapes in the mind’s ...

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Review: Medicine (Marc Broude)

Reviews — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 19:56:45 +0000

Medicine is a kind of ambient/experimental/jazz monster, a cold and misty dream, a delirious wandering into the frigid canyons and plateaus of frosty Niflheim. Medicine? This is shamanistic medicine, seidhr medicine, medicine of the heart, the spirit, the soul. Ordeal medicine, dancing with death, drawing us into mystery, puncturing the thin skin of self-evident, everyday ...

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Review: Restless in Flight (Forest of the Soul)

Reviews — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 05:06:15 +0000

Forest of the Soul is the newest project from Nechochwen’s Andrew Della Cagna and Aaron Carey. Given the excellence of Nechochwen’s folk-black metal fusion, I had high hopes for Restless in Flight, which sees Della Cagna’s intimidating multi-instrumentality paired off with Aaron Carey’s talented guitar playing. Excellent though it is, I unfortunately fear that this release does not sit as well with me as Nechochwen’s ...

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Review: Cult of Youth (Cult of Youth)

Reviews — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 08:07:50 +0000

Whether delving into psych-folk head-trips, wild western digressions, or good old foot-stomping punk anthems, Cult of Youth are always in total control – and yet always feel on the very brim of total chaos. These guys are an unstoppable ...

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